Snark Shark

So my instrument cluster occasionally sounds like there's a family of guinea pigs living inside it. Only for a few seconds after start up, and rarely when I stop at a light. I just got the cluster out to see if I can repair my odometer (hopefully just the typical broken gear), and my intermittent speedo and tach. Is there anything in particular that commonly causes the squealing noise? Or should I just go nuts with my tube of Radio Shack electronics lube? Thanks.

jcorenman

Hamsters, in our case. It turned out to be the temperature-setting motor, on the left side of the heater box-- accessible from below with the parcel-shelf (if fitted) removed. It is the gizmo that operates the hot/cold air mixing flags.

The key to diagnosis was that we could make the noise come and go by fiddling with the temperature slider.

The failure was the feedback poteniometer inside the motor/gearbox housing, basically a resistive track on the PCB with a wiper on the shaft. The fix was a replacement unit (used) from 928 Int'l. Part# 928-624-129-00